What is the origin of the Lantern Festival?
The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival is a traditional festival in my country. The Lantern Festival is also known as the Shangyuan Festival, Yuanxiao Festival, and the Little New Year. There are many customs of the Lantern Festival. People hang up lanterns and decorations on this day. So what is the origin of the Lantern Festival? For more details about the 2018 Lunar New Year calendar, please visit the Fortune Teller website for consultation!What is the origin of the Lantern Festival?The Lantern Festival is a traditional Chinese festival which has existed as early as the Western Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. The Lantern Festival began during the reign of Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Emperor Ming promoted Buddhism. He heard that in Buddhism, monks would view Buddha relics and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. So he ordered that lanterns be lit in the palace and temples on that night to worship Buddha, and ordered both the nobles and common people to hang lanterns. Later, this Buddhist ritual festival gradually became a grand folk festival. This festival has gone through a development process from the palace to the folk, and from the Central Plains to the whole country.During the reign of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, an order was issued to designate the fifteenth day of the first lunar month as the Lantern Festival. During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, the sacrificial activities for "Taiyi God" were set on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. (Taiyi: the god who dominates everything in the universe). When Sima Qian created the "Taichu Calendar", he had already designated the Lantern Festival as a major festival. Another theory is that the custom of lighting lanterns during the Lantern Festival originated from the Taoist "Three Yuan Theory"; the fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Shangyuan Festival, the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is the Zhongyuan Festival, and the fifteenth day of the tenth lunar month is the Xiayuan Festival. The three officials in charge of the upper, middle and lower Yuan are the three officials of heaven, earth and man respectively. The official of heaven is happy, so lights must be lit on the Lantern Festival. The period and customs of the Lantern Festival have been extended and expanded with the development of history. In terms of the length of the festival, it was only one day in the Han Dynasty, three days in the Tang Dynasty, five days in the Song Dynasty, and in the Ming Dynasty the lights were lit from the eighth day to the seventeenth night of the first lunar month, a full ten days. It is connected with the Spring Festival. It is very lively during the day and the lights are lit at night, which is spectacular. Especially the exquisite and colorful lights make it the climax of entertainment activities during the Spring Festival. In the Qing Dynasty, dragon and lion dances, land boat racing, stilt walking, and yangko dance were added, but the festival period was shortened to four to five days. |
>>: What are the differences between the customs of the Lantern Festival in the north and the south?
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